Small Business Today: Facebook suddenly not delivering for small business – small business reading for 10-15-2012

By owenl | Yahoo Small Business

SMB-Branding-Infographic-Clives-Car-detailIn many circles people talk about Facebook as a miracle marketing solution for small businesses. And lots of businesses have been doing very well there, with some even skipping their own website to make their Facebook page the hub of their online strategy. Well, those businesses might want to rethink that strategy. This absolutely fascinating post explains why. It's pretty technical stuff but the key lies in the paragraph where the post authors point out that Facebook is effectively asking you to pay up to get the people who liked your business page to actually see posts from it in their feed. "Most brands or business pages have acquired their likes through Facebook advertising. Not all of them, but a large percentage. The whole idea is that you get people to like your page and then you engage with them through content and updates. What is happening now — with the introduction of promoted posts — is that Facebook is trying to get brands to pay to be seen by all the people who already like their page. They are saying "only 5% of people who like your page are going to see your updates so if you want to get the other 95%, you will have to pay again." It's only empirical evidence, but we are seeing it too. Since Sept 20th the number of people seeing the posts on our Facebook page has more than halved.